1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing device capable of providing a Web service, a control method therefor, and a program.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, a Web service technology has attracted great attention in the Internet. The Web service is a technology for gently coupling various services dispersed on a network to one another. By utilizing this technology, it is possible for a program to dynamically select an appropriate service without a human operation interposed therein, and the Web service is expected by various industrial fields, as a technology for automatically executing target processing. Data exchanged in the Web service is described in extensible Markup Language (XML), and such XML data is communicated on the network by using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). The SOAP is a protocol for accessing an object in a remote environment by using the XML. The SOAP is defined to use, in lower layers thereof, such protocols as Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Accordingly, it is not necessary to open extra ports to the network, and the SOAP is easily usable in the Internet in a similar way to Web browsing and electronic mail.
Further, as a technical specification for use in the Web service technology, Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) is given. The UDDI is architecture for registering and discovering the Web service. It is possible for the Web service to register service information by using the UDDI, and for a user of the Web service to discover the Web service by using the UDDI. It is possible to acquire a technical specification of the UDDI from http://uddi.org.
Application of this Web service technology to an image processing device makes it possible to obtain various merits. For example, in the conventional image processing device, a client has prepared an original protocol of its own for the purpose of searching for various services, such as a print service and a scan service, which are provided by the image processing device. Meanwhile, in the image processing device implemented with the Web service, the service information is registered in a UDDI server on the network, and it is made possible for the client to search for the Web service information from the UDDI server by using an integrated interface. Further, since this interface is a standardized one, it is possible to search for various services therethrough without being limited to those from the image processing device. Still further, in an environment where an independent UDDI server is not present on the network, it is also possible for the image processing device itself to implement a function of the UDDI server therein, and to search for, from the client, the services provided by the image processing device. As described above, it is expected that the image processing device to which the Web service technology having various merits is applied will be developed more and more in the future.
Meanwhile, as described above, an image processing device is considered, which searches for the service providable by itself from the client based on the original protocol of each one's own in the conventional image processing device, and makes the providable service usable.
As an example of the above, there is an image processing device implemented with Service Location Protocol (SLP). The SLP is a protocol defined by RFC 2608. By using this technology, the client can search an image processing device that provides desired services such as the print service and the scan service from the network. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H8-6884 discloses a search system by which the client can search the image processing device that provides the desired services.
However, in the case of considering an image processing device implemented with both functions, which are: a function to implement with the function of the above-described UDDI server and to make the Web service provided by itself searchable from the client; and a function to make the service provided by itself searchable based on the above-described original protocol, there occurs such a problem that the searchable services are limited depending on whether a search request from the client is one made for the UDDI server that is based on the technology of the Web service or one based on the original protocol implemented in the image processing device.
Accordingly, in order to allow the client to search for the Web service provided by the image processing device by using the above-described original protocol other than the UDDI, it is necessary to make the respective Web service programs correspond to the respective protocols other than the above.
However, though a mechanism called the UDDI for the service search is provided, it is necessary to revise the entire existing Web service programs every time when the protocol for the search is newly laid out and implemented, and this is inefficient.